The Acorn Accolade Technology Award of Excellence recognizes one IT employee each month for exemplary work.
Claudia Sparks, assistant director in teaching and learning technologies, was recognized for her leadership in September on a number of IT and Elon University projects. Sparks was instrumental in creating and leading project management training for the IT staff. The Acorn Accolade award was created to provide recognition to one employee each month as recommended by the directors to the assistant vice president for technology.
Sparks worked with a team to envision project management training that would be beneficial to IT staff members on campus. The training was instrumental in building connections across departments, increasing communication, laying the groundwork for best practices and creating a portfolio management process to increase awareness of enterprise level projects.
Christopher Waters, assistant vice president for technology and chief information officer, has been able to see the success of the program. “The staff feedback from these sessions has been overwhelmingly positive, and the learning that has taken place is evident,” Waters says.
In addition to her work with project management, Sparks’ other accomplishments include her leadership and work with Are You Ready, the creation of the Learning On Demand video portal and beautifying the Technology Plan into an elegant and reader-friendly document. “Every project I work on is a team effort,” says Sparks. “Every success I have is because I have a good team behind me.”
Sparks’ leadership skills are also apparent in other projects, such as developing I&CT’s branding initiatives, providing leadership to the Creative Services team, and challenging the TLT student staff to achieve professional-level work.
“Claudia challenges us all to be better, and we are grateful for her leadership and excellent work across the department,” Waters concludes.
The Acorn Accolade will reside in the recipient’s workspace for one month and then move on when the next awardee is named. A small, 3D-printed replica will remain with each recipient in their workspace.